Back to France! Day One: Old Carcassonne

After spending our first morning in the newer section of Carcassonne, it was time to venture up the hillside to the old, walled city. And when I say old, I mean really old. The first colony on the site (that we know of) was founded by the Romans (who else?!) in 118 BC. Yes, BC — I said it was old! 

One corner of the walled city

The castle wasn't constructed as we know it around 1130AD, but by then much of the walled city had been erected. The city and castle have undergone many re-builds, but it is more or less organized and looks as it would have originally. 

Effigy of Dame Carcas

Carcassonne is very near the Spain/France boarder and therefore it was often under siege and even taken by the other side —and by other side, I simply mean whichever side didn't currently hold the city. There is also the legend of Dame Carcas. Although historians think she is a fictional character, the legend takes place in the 8th century, during the wars between Christians and Muslims in the southwest of Europe. At the time, Carcassonne was under Saracen rule and Charlemagne's army was at the gates to reconquer the city for the Franks. A Saracen princess named Carcas ruled the Knights of the City after the death of her husband.

Double crenelated walls and watchtowers

The siege lasted for five years. Early in the sixth year, food and water were running out. Lady Carcas made an inventory of all remaining reserves. The villagers brought her a pig and a sack of wheat. She then had the idea to feed the wheat to the pig and then throw it from the highest tower of the city walls.

City walls and watchtower

Charlemagne lifted the siege, believing that the city had enough food to the point of wasting pigs fed with wheat. Overjoyed by the success of her plan, Lady Carcas decided to sound all the bells in the city. One of Charlemagne's men then exclaimed: "Carcas sonne!" (which means “Carcas sounds”). Hence the name of the city.

Double crenelated walls

The city was also known to curry favor with the cathars, an offshoot and rival religion to Catholicism. The catholics didn't like that much and also fought the city to drum out the evil cathars. 

Inner wall to the left, outer wall to the right.

Because this city was so hotly contested and prized, the builders created a double row of defensive walls, or crenelated towers. While much of the inner walls date back to the medieval period, the outer walls had been demolished. They were re-built in the late 1800s based on historical documents. 

Courtyard of the castle

Inside the walls boasts not just a city, but also a castle. The castle was built in the 12th Century for the Viscount of Carcassonne. As with all castles, it was his office as well as his family's home. 

New Carcassone on the right

Today the castle is filled with a lot of empty rooms (not very interesting to photograph), but outside there are some great vantage points across what is now the new city of Carcassonne. 

Over the top crenelated wall you can see the more modern Carcassonne.

Inside the castle boasts many sculptures and other finds that have resurfaced during renovations and re-constructions. 

Wall sculptures. The far left one is quite scary

Detailed sculpture

Ornate doorway with creepy statue in the distance

There were a lot of items to stop and inspect. If I had photographed them all, I would have never left the castle! 

Don't blink!

Hunting scene fresco

Many of the tombstones below are thought to date back to crusading soldiers who didn't return home alive.

Where's Buffy when you need her? 

I liked the sculpture of the old lady so much I used her as my Facebook profile picture for a while! She looks like she was friendly, no? 

My BFF

Most of our intrepid traveler crew.

Hey! Let's go to France!

Bill and I (far back, in the sun) with the castle behind us. 

A far away shot of the two of us

Another book at the castle

Carcassonne even had its own amphitheater behind one of city walls. It's a fairly new build for the city, but with an amazing backdrop! 

Carcassonne amphitheater

Here's a shot of Brook being silly as we made our way to the historic cathedral.

Halt! Who goes there?

We then made our way to the cathedral of St. Nazaire and St. Celse. This catholic church was built to appease Rome  during the times of the Cathar troubles. It mostly worked.   

Cathedral of St. Nazaire and St. Celse

Construction was started on the cathedral in 1240 and the cathedral was completed in record speed - only 50 years! 

Statue; perhaps of one of the saints?

The gorgeous rose window is said to date back to the 15th century, 

Rose window

while the other panels of stained glass is said to be more recent.

More recent stained glass

As always in a new cathedral, I stopped and light a light for my Mom. Oh how she would have loved to see the photos of all my travels! I hope that her spirit is watching and is happy for me. 

A light for Mom

Back to France! Day One: New Carcassonne

I am almost a full year behind in these blog posts, but I'll keep slogging through them and eventually catch up - I promise! 

Statue in 'New" Carcassonne

Last October, along with three other couples, we rented a big old house in France and spent a long, fun week exploring the surroundings. On the first day we went to the 'new' section of Carcassonne and picked up loads of food in a local marketplace (like a farmer's market) to stock our cupboards.  

Another statue

While fumbling our way through buying produce in French, we saw many beautiful statues. It's always shocking when you get off a plane and all of the sudden people ask you things - 'Lalalalala?' and you have no freaking idea what they're saying. My friend Julie taught me to reply, in French, 

And yet another

My friend, Julie, taught me to reply, 'Je suis un pamplemousse,' which means 'I am a grapefruit.' I never did it, but I was oh, so tempted! 

The group decides how best to conquer the market.

Cindy and Reg wait for the rest of us to finish

Bill and I were in charge of buying the salad fixings, and I dare say we did an all right job! We may not have paid the best prices, since we didn't even attempt to haggle, but we were proud of our finished purchases!

'Old' Carcassonne as seen from afar

I spent a week last summer in and around Carcassonne with the wine trip. Unfortunately, the one day we actually had in the walled city, we arrived just as all of the shops were closing for the day. Thankfully, we got to spend lots of time exploring the walled city on this trip. 

Another view of the walled Carcassonne

In a future post I will share all of the details inside the walled city, but we had just as much fun walking to the city as inside the city. 

Bill chilling on the bridge

Julie jumping from the wall of the bridge

If you've ever played the game Carcassonne, you will know the game has 'meeples.' We wanted to take lots of meeple photos, but we never really got the chance. I think the photo of Julie above is the best 'Knight Meeple'.  

Dan & Julie taking a selfie

Our selfie with the city as backdrop

The first day of the week-long trip was a blast and an indicator of how much fun we were going to have! 

Hanging Out in Northhamptonshire

We went down to visit Rachael, Paul, and Hetty in the autumn. They always have cool things to show us and this trip included a visit to a nearby 16th century ruin. The building was begun in the mid 1500s, but never completed.  

Livened New Bield

It was a part of Sir Thomas Tresham's manor and was intended to be a garden lodge, basically a party lodge (and place of secret worship, but I'll get to that in a second) that the family and friends could walk to from the manor house by way of orchards, terraces, and canals. 

Graffiti circa 1792

Sir Thomas Tresham was a very wealthy landowner during the Tudor period and a devout Catholic. After Henry VIII separated from the Catholic church it was very dangerous to continue practicing Catholicism. The Tresham family did not want to change religions, so the garden lodge was also a place where they could privately worship. 

Graffiti circa 1824

For many years historians didn't know what happened to the home owners or why the garden lodge was never completed. But in 1832 someone found notes and letters concealed in the walls of the manor house that detail the fall of the Tresham family. 

Catholic Images

Using the found notes, historians have been able to piece together the fact that Sir Thomas was a threat to the crown and suffered financial setbacks before his death in 1605. After his death the tradesmen put down their tools and never worked on the garden lodge again. A few years after his death Sir Thomas' son, Francis, was identified as a conspirator in the Gunpowder Plot (AKA Guy Fawkes debacle) and all of the lands were striped from the Tresham family. 

Three distinct stories

The garden lodge has sat, unfinished, since the fall of the family Tresham for over 400 years. As you can see, in photos above, people have been hanging out in the abandoned, half-built building throughout that time. Some of them even carved graffiti in the stone. I'd imaging many a teenage kegger (or whatever the equivalent was back in the day) has taken place within this shell of an almost building. 

Gorgeous views

Paul, Rachael's husband, is a archaeologist and helped many years ago uncovering some of the garden features that had once been prominent during the Elizabethan era. Things like the canals, terraces, and mounts in the photos below. 

Planned canal and garden house as seen from the top of the mount

Purpose-built canal

Planned terraced mount

And we had sweet Hetty there to keep us all in check. Bill took the last photo below, but he was there, too!

Sweet Hetty

Me and the Stampers

The Queen's Dresses

Every now and again I get to go to the big city and pretend I'm all fancy. Last Autumn my friend Julie asked me if I wanted to go down to London, tour Buckingham Palace and see their special exhibit on the queen's gowns. I said yes. Duh! 

In Green Park

We went down on the morning train, arriving in time to grab lunch take-away in the train station and heading to Green Park for a little picnic. When the sun's out in England, you make the most of it!

How Green Park got its name: 

King Charles II was quite a cad. He loved women and was rather flamboyant. One day he and his entourage, including his wife and her ladies-in-waiting, took a stroll through what is now called Green Park.  One of the men gathered a bunch of flowers growing in the park and gave them to the king and told him he should present them to the loveliest woman in the park. Everyone looked at the king and queen, standing next to one another and smiled, expecting a lovely little scene. But the king took the bouquet over to one of the other ladies, bowed low, and presented her, not his wife, with the flowers. The queen was furious (as anyone would be in such a scenario) and demanded that every flower in the park be ripped out and never be re-planted. To this day, Green Park is a gorgeous, grassy park… with not a single flower. 

In the Queen's backyard

The dresses on exhibit were absolutely fantastic! Sadly, no pictures were allowed, but we not only saw many of her dresses from diplomatic events, but also her wedding and coronation dresses. She is a tiny woman and was super-thin when she was younger. I don't think I would have ever been able to fit into any of her 'younger days' frocks!   

Buckingham Palace's back patio and garden

We left Buckingham Palace with 30 minutes to get back to Kings Cross station to catch our train. We exited the palace far from the entrance and had to hoof it to the closest tube station. It was rush hour and we had to ride the tube for 6, painfully slow stops. When we arrived at Kings Cross tube station we had six minutes to run from the platform, up several escalators, over to the trains station, find our train platform and get on. We made it with two minutes to spare, sweaty and out of breath. But we made it!